Kara Scott and Layne Flack on top at Bay 101 Shooting Stars

Tuesday, 15 March 2011

The World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Stars event is one of the most eagerly-anticipated on the calendar with a $10,000 buy-in and $5,000 bounties on a certain amount of Stars... that you have to shoot, metaphorically speaking. With 142 entrants for Day 1a, tournament director Matt Savage is looking for a total field of 376 for a $1,000,000 first prize.

Brian Schmidt earned a $10,000 bonus after Day 1a for bagging up the most chips at the end of play, turning his 30,000 starting stack into 187,700 by the end; ahead of second place Eric Moore by almost a full starting stack. Notable names in the top five chip counts include Kara Scott (137,100) and Layne Flack (131,300).

Mike Matusow and Brandon Cantu also joined the six-figure chip club while John Juanda, PCA champion Galen Hall and Gavin Smith finished the day above-average in chips with more than 64,600. Dwyte Pilgrim, Pat Pezzin, Audley Harrison, Men Nguyen, Daniel Negreanu, Hoyt Corkins, Phil Hellmuth, Maria Ho and Jason Mercier will also return for Day 2, albeit with some work to do and a shorter stack.

Tonight Day 1b plays out with over 200 players already registered and a field of 234 needed for a seven-figure first prize. More shooting stars, including both Phil Ivey and Daniel “jungleman12” Cates are to be playing at Bay 101 tonight. Previous winners of this event include Mclean Karr (2010; $878,500), Phil Gordon (2004; $360,000), Brandon Cantu (2008; $1,000,000) and Ted Forrest (2007; $1.1m).

Keep up to date with all the news from the poker world by following us on Twitter and Facebook.

TOP STORIES

Online poker players looking to get more bang for their buck are being advised to check out Intertops Poker and Juicy Stakes this weekend as the sites will be offering a matching reload bonus worth up to $100.